An appeal of a plan to reconfigure and replant — but maintain — all of the palm trees along Marina Drive will push any street improvements into nesting season.

That means street work might not start until October 2019, about when the large 2nd and PCH development is scheduled to open. Marina Drive between Second Street and the Studebaker access road is an integral part of the traffic pattern for the new center.

A hearing is set before the city Planning Commission on Dec. 20. Planning Commission action could be appealed to the Coastal Commission, where a hearing wouldn’t take place before February, and potentially later. And the nesting season, where trimming or removing trees is either illegal or severely limited, runs from January through September.

The appeal — of a zoning administrator approval of a Local Coastal Permit — is the latest move in an ongoing battle by Anna Christensen and a group of environmental activists to stop removal of any trees or construction along Marina Drive. When the 2nd and PCH developer took 22 palm trees out last January, Christensen and her group called Protect the Long Beach/Cerritos Wetlands protested to the city and the state Coastal Commission.

Craig Beck, director of the city’s Public Works Department, offered a plan last month to keep all of the remaining palms, replace the 22 palms taken out and add 35 more canopy trees. That could be done while still allowing work to reconfigure Marina Drive with sidewalks, bike paths, diagonal parking on the marina side of the street and one lane in each direction by moving several trees in the median and putting some of the palms on the side of the street into planters.

But that wasn’t good enough for Christensen and Leslie Rash, who filed the appeal. They also have been supported in meetings with Beck by Ann Cantrell, another longtime activist.

The most important issue, according to both Christensen and Coastal Commission staff, is that some of the palm trees are nesting sites for the Great Blue Heron. During the last survey, biologists found seven nests.

Further, Christensen said, moving the palm trees could jeopardize the trees’ health and confuse the nesting and migrating birds.

Beck said the most trees would be moved and replanted was “a few feet.”

When asked what they hoped to accomplish with an appeal, Christensen and Rash responded with a four page letter. The first bullet point says:

“Removal/relocation of the 50-60 years-old palm trees is hazardous to the trees and the migration pattern/nesting of great blue heron. The palm trees on Marina Drive have been jeopardized for the benefit of an ill-conceived street project that needs to be looked at further. Leave the trees in place; change the street project.”

The coastal permit deals only with the trees.

Currently, Marina Drive from the Second Street intersection to the Studebaker access road between Marina Drive and Pacific Coast Highway is two lanes in each direction with a fairly wide median and no sidewalk on either side. The 2nd and PCH center will have two stories of restaurants and shops facing Alamitos Bay Marina along Marina Drive.

The city’s plan, approved during hearings about the retail development, would add sidewalks and bike lanes on both sides of Marina Drive and reduce traffic to one lane in each direction. Beck said that traffic studies have shown one lane can handle the current and expected traffic, and the sidewalks in particular are important safety improvements.

Christensen argues that there were not public meetings specifically about the changes to Marina Drive, so it should be revisited. She said her groups want to stop any work there until those public meetings take place.

Even the local appeal would push any tree work into the restrictive nesting season.

“You can actually do tree work in the nesting season, but it is much more expensive,” Beck said. “You have to have a biologist on site at all times… It would appear the development will open without the safety features on the street.”

If the Planning Commission were to override the appeal and approve the local coastal permit, it could be appealed to the state Coastal Commission within 10 days. Then the commission has 49 working days for an initial hearing to determine if there are substantial issues with the permit.

If the commission were to rule there are issues, they would have another 180 days to conduct a full hearing on the appeal.

Harry has been executive editor of Gazette Newspapers for more than 20 years. He has been in the newspaper business for more than 30 years, with experience on both weekly and metropolitan daily papers in Colorado and California. In addition to his work on the paper, Saltzgaver currently is president of the Water Commission; for more than a decade years prior to that, he served as a commissioner for the Long Beach Parks and Recreation Commission. He also is chair of Goodwill Serving the People of Southern Los Angeles County and a trustee of the Grand Prix Foundation of Long Beach.